PHOENIX—Rep. Greg Stanton, who served as Phoenix’s mayor when the city passed its Human Relations Ordinance in 2013, made the following statement in response to the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision in Brush & Nib v. The City of Phoenix that permits discrimination against same-sex couples:
This is a shameful day for Arizona.
Four years after the U.S. Supreme Court held that same-sex couples have a fundamental right to marry, the state Supreme Court has decided that cities cannot safeguard those same couples from active and harmful discrimination by corporations. This is backwards, dark-ages thinking.
Today’s decision will hurt real people. And after so many have worked so hard to show that Arizona is a welcoming place for everyone, this decision will harm our economy by sending the unfortunate message that discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation is still acceptable by some state leaders. That is the sad legacy of this decision and the court-packing scheme that paved the way for this result.